


Phoenix

by BookishBrigitta



Series: Phoenix Universe [1]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Awfulness, Education, F/M, Family, Friendship, Happy Ending, Historical References, Men being feminists, Music, References to Depression, Women Being Awesome, everthorne, not a songfic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-09
Updated: 2020-03-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:40:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22977067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BookishBrigitta/pseuds/BookishBrigitta
Summary: The war is over; the fire is extinguished.  Now all she has to do is rise from the ashes.  But that comes with its own set of challenges, because for the first time ever, Katniss is in control of her own future.
Relationships: Katniss Everdeen/Gale Hawthorne
Series: Phoenix Universe [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1669447
Comments: 5
Kudos: 6





	Phoenix

**Author's Note:**

> This story jumps in a few years after Mockingjay ends. I can't find a coherent way to bridge the gap yet, and I had this story idea that actually had an arc to it, so I just decided to go for it. I'll definitely have some explanations written into the story as I go and may do a few one-shots of the major events, but writing 3 years worth of characters mostly just walking around District 12 seemed horribly boring.
> 
> The only things that need to be known going into this are a) Gale moved back to District 12, b) Peeta has moved on, and c) Katniss finally got her high school degree.

It’s a bright, comfortably-warm August day when we leave for District Six. But that does nothing to help the fact that trains don’t exactly inspire happy memories for me. I breathe deeply, the acrid smell of steam and oil and iron assaulting my nose as I try to stay in the present. 

_My name is Katniss Everdeen. I am twenty years old. My home is District Twelve. I am going to District Six. I will live there. In one week, I will start classes at Panem Teachers’ College._

I squeeze the handles of my bags, focusing on the feel of the leather handles, the metal rivets holding them to the bags. In one hand is my new school bag, an oversized envelope of waxed canvas with a handle on top. In the other is a heavy wood-and-tweed suitcase, bought new for the occasion. 

I think I’m doing a pretty good job of concealing my nervousness until Gale catches my eye and looks at me with a concerned frown. I give him a little nod and an even smaller smile. I know he’d take my hand if he wasn’t carrying the matching half of the suitcase set and an ancient carpet bag of Hazelle’s with the handle so worn that he has to hold it at an odd angle to keep it from falling off entirely. 

_Gale is moving with me. He loves me. I love him. Gale is my best friend. Gale is my husband. We got married three months ago. Gale is mine. I am his. Anything else is unthinkable._

There’s only fifteen minutes until the train leaves, so we set down our bags to say our good-byes. The whole Hawthorne clan is there to see us off. Rory and Vick give us each a quick hug. Hazelle clutches her oldest tightly while Posy launches herself into my arms. 

“Oh, Posy. We’ll be back,” I say as I rub her back.

Posy looks up at me. “Are you going to be sad when you come back, like last time?”

My heart spasms, and I move my hand to her cheek. “No, no, Posy. I’m going to be so happy. Happy about everything I learn at school and even happier to come home and see _you_.” I punctuate the last word by tickling her ribs. 

“I’ll still miss you,” Posy says.

“I’ll miss you, too. But we’ll write letters and talk on the telephone and be back before you know it.” 

I kiss the top of Posy’s head, and she relinquishes her grip on me and switches her attention to Gale. I’ve barely been free of her grasp for ten seconds before Hazelle’s arms are around me. Hazelle’s eyes are a little mistier than they had been a few minutes ago, but she still radiates the same warm, steady comfort as she did when we met all those years ago, back when I was just a scrawny almost-orphan helping Gale drag home a deer. 

When Hazelle finally lets go, she looks me straight in the eyes.

“You’re going to be great, Katniss, I know it. Just remember to take care.”

“Of Gale?”

She puts a hand on my shoulder. “No, my dear, I already know you’ll do _that_. You always have. I want you to take care of _yourself_.”

I pull her into another hug, trying to keep away the tears prickling in my eyes.

“Thank you,” I whisper. “For everything. I--”

Hazelle shushes me and holds me tighter for a moment before the train’s warning whistle interrupts us. She gives us one last hug and kiss, and then it’s time for Gale and me to get on the train. 

We reach our seats and stow the luggage beneath them. The train gives another sharp whistle. Outside the window, the rest of the Hawthornes are waving, and we wave back. The pistons hiss, and the whole car lurches forward as the train starts to pull away. We keep waving until we can’t make them out anymore. Gale swallows harshly and keeps staring out the window.

“You okay?” I ask, taking his hand between both of mine.

“Yeah,” he says hoarsely. “You?”

“I’m fine,” I assure.

Surprisingly, I am fine. I’m still uneasy, but the panicky, losing-my-grip feeling from the platform is gone. With the anticipation and uncertainty over, I am firmly in the present. 

It helps that this train is nothing like the Capitol ones; this one is far more utilitarian. The seats are upholstered in drab blue fabric and arranged in pairs that face each other, four pairs on either side of the car. Each pair has a window with a dark wooden panel above it that folds down into a bunk. There are a handful of other passengers, all of whom were already on the train when it arrived in District Twelve. A few are in suits, presumably travelling for business; others, like the old woman knitting in the row across from us, are dressed more casually. None of them, praise the heavens above, are dressed like Effie Trinket. 

The afternoon grows later, and I remember another difference between the trains: this one doesn’t have much in the way of food. We were warned, by Haymitch of all people, that whatever food is available is overpriced and tasteless. Hazelle, naturally, had taken it upon herself to rectify the situation, so my school bag is packed with apples and boiled eggs and sandwiches wrapped in grease paper. I take one out for both of us, and we eat in comfortable, companionable silence as we have a million times before.

Eventually, I feel a weight press into my side and realize Gale has slipped from silence to sleep. I don’t try to wake him. It had been a bad night last night. The anxiety of the impending move must have triggered something because I woke up thrashing and panicked five separate times. Logically, I should be dozing off right now, too, but the train makes me just unsettled enough that the adrenaline keeps me awake and alert. _Hyper-vigilant_ , Dr. Aurelius calls it.

Careful not to jostle Gale’s head from its spot on my shoulder, I turn my head to better look out the window. I watch the landscape flatten out and the trees and underbrush blur together as I think about what had really been the start of this journey.

_I’m a lot better than the catatonic girl Greasy Sae had fed and dressed like a doll when Peeta and the Hawthornes came back. By the time Gale and I start talking again, I’ve made even more progress. I’m better still when I start helping Hazelle and Posy a few days a week. After a while, I stop being silent while I help. I make smalltalk with Hazelle. I tell jokes with Posy. And I start to sing again._

_“That’s when I knew you were better,” Gale tells me later. “That’s when I knew you were going to be okay.”_

_Before long, I’m doing it all the time. When I do dishes, fold clothes, and walk to visit Haymitch. Happy songs, sad songs, old songs, new songs. Posy, of course, wants to learn them all, and I teach her, slowly but surely._

_Gale reminds me of this one day in the woods when I’m anxious and rudderless and telling him I have no idea what the hell I’m supposed to do with the rest of my life. I don’t want a fancy Capitol job or to run a stall at the Hob or a shop in the town, and hunting isn’t exactly a career._

_“What about music?” he asks._

_“What about it?”_

_“You could teach.”_

_I consider this for a minute, picking unconsciously at the end of my braid. “I...I think I’d like that. But I don’t know if I could.”_

_“‘Course you could. You’re a good singer, and Madge taught you a little piano, and you’re good with kids.”_

_“I’m not good with--”_

_“Yes, you are. I’ve seen you with Posy and Rory and Vick and the refugees in Two and Thirteen and…” he pauses to gage my reaction and see if two more names will help or hurt his cause. “And Prim and Rue.”_

_I sigh deeply. “But that doesn’t mean I’d make a good teacher.”_

_“You’ve taught Posy loads of stuff. She loves it when you teach her new songs, and you even get Vick to join in sometimes, even though his voice is all over the place these days. Just give it some thought, Catnip.”_

_Gale drops the issue after that, but I keep thinking about it. He tries to feign ambivalence, but he grins when he comes home from work a few days later to find me pouring over a pamphlet for Panem Teachers’ College._

Gale shifts beside me, and I know he’s awake when I feel a kiss pressed to my shoulder.

“How long was I out?” he asks groggily.

“Not long,” I answer. “You’re stuck here with me for a while yet.”

“Well, that sounds pretty good to me.”

We spend the rest of the evening talking and eating and playing cards on the little table that folds up under the window until, despite the relatively early hour, the numbers swim in my head and every blink makes it harder to keep my eyes open. 

“Time for bed, Catnip,” Gale says after I forget my turn for the third time in a row.

I nod, too tired to protest as he puts the cards away and shoos me towards the washroom at the end of the car. When I get back, the curtains are drawn around our section and Gale has already moved the seats into the bed position and pulled down the panel for the upper bunk. We switch places seamlessly; I start putting on the sheets, and he heads for the washroom to get ready for bed. 

I can just make out the landscape rushing by as I pull the curtains across the window. An uneasy feeling tugs at the back of my mind. I take a deep breath and focus on making the upper bunk. It’s the one I’ll be sleeping in, since Gale is going to be cramped enough as it is on the bottom. As I reach for the corner, the train rattles, swaying the bunk like a tree branch. I freeze. _Trains, tributes, sleeping in trees, trains, tributes, sleeping in trees._

It’s like all the confidence I had before disappeared with the sun, and I’m back to feeling exactly as I had on the platform. I shiver and recoil from the upper bunk, and I realize, rather embarrassingly, that I really, _really_ don’t want to sleep alone tonight. I fold the top bunk back into the wall and sit tensely on the lower one until Gale comes back.

“Hey, Catnip,” he says, soothing, but confused. He sits beside me gingerly. “What’s going on?”

“I thought I was doing okay,” I whisper. 

I lean against him so he knows it’s okay to touch me. His arm is around me instantly.

“Can you tell me where you are?” he asks, usually a good barometer for how I’m doing.

“Train to Six,” I say, muffled slightly by his shirt. “I’ll be okay. I just...don’t want to be alone.”

“Okay. I can work with that.”

Gale takes off his boots and lies down on his side, back pressed against the side of the train. He stretches his arm out across the bunk.

“C’mere.”

I lay down, and the bunk is so narrow I don’t even have to move in order to be tucked safely under his chin. Gale kisses the top of my head and flicks the lights off. He runs his fingers through my hair until my shoulders drift away from my ears and my eyelids start to droop. But before I doze off entirely, I shift just enough so I can pull him in for a proper good-night kiss. Then I settle back down with my back against his chest and his arm slung over my waist. I take his hand in mine and kiss it firmly before pressing it to my chest and letting the warm weight ground me in reality.

Sixteen-year-old me would have found this all utterly ridiculous. But she just had no idea how wonderful it feels.

**Author's Note:**

> Guess what the book the carpet bag is taken from and the reviewer with the correct answer will be entitled to a kiss from either District 12’s runner-up best archer OR Mr. Phillips’s schoolhouse runner-up spelling bee champion. ;)


End file.
